Hustle Up Starlings and its minimalist acoustic companion album, Starlings Unadorned, are NOW AVAILABLE for Immediate Download. Simply scroll down and Click "Buy Album"

We appreciate when you purchase music directly from us. The digital store is below so please browse what we have available. There's some exclusive music to be found at the bottom, so be sure to check that out! If you can't find the album or song you're looking for here don't hesitate to check out Amazon or iTunes.

The physical mail-order store is now OPEN! So if you're looking for Mail-Order CDs go HERE!

Matthew Ryan

Starlings Unadorned is a 12 track collection of cinematic acoustic versions of selected songs from Hustle Up Starlings. It also contains some previously unreleased demos and songs.

Often after you finish a new album, you have to sit down and re-learn the songs on your acoustic because of all the flourishes and skin a band brings to them in the studio. What you're hearing here is the result of that process. Starlings Unadorned also contains some songs and demos that had yet to find a home. They just felt right here and seemed to expand the story. I hope you enjoy that little peek into my demoing process.

I'm releasing this now to help my band and I tour with The Gaslight Anthem in the UK and Europe this summer without the stress of finances hanging over us. We are fully independent and DIY, and the costs of doing international shows in a humane fashion can be overwhelming, if not prohibitive. We love the guys in The Gaslight Anthem and we really love that they are celebrating the 10th anniversary of their beautiful breakout album, The '59 Sound, with a bunch of shows this year.

I had planned on releasing Starlings Unadorned later this year but felt that now would be the time to share it with you so we could put whatever income you guys gifted us with to good use on this upcoming tour with Gaslight.

We've set the price for Starlings Unadorned at $10 / Or Pay More If You Want. For people to actually pay for music these days (which so many of you reading this do...) is an act of love. But please don't feel you have to pay more than $10. It's simply a way for you to contribute more if you feel compelled to.

And as always, if you're inclined, please share news of this release via your socials and with friends.

Alright... Alright.

Thank you, Guys. Thank you for continuing to welcome my work into your lives.

Hustle Up Starlings

Matthew Ryan

The Digital Album of HUSTLE UP STARLINGS is NOW AVAILABLE for immediate download!

Interested in Hustle Up Starlings on CD?

Go HERE:

https://matthewryanonline.com/cd-store

The CDs are beautifully designed, complete with an 8-Panel booklet of photos, credits, full lyrics and an introduction by Michael Koryta.
Visit www.matthewryanonline.com for all details.

I always say it, and I always mean it:
Thank YOU for purchasing music. It means the world to all of us.

Hustle Up Starlings was produced by Brian Fallon from The Gaslight Anthem. It includes performances by Brian Bequette, Brian Fallon, David Henry, Doug Lancio, Brad Pemberton and yours truly. It was mixed and recorded by Doug Lancio. And Hans DeKline once again mastered it into that shimmering film to be wildly welcoming.

Please help us to spread this news by clicking the share/embed under the Cover Art up there, or by sharing this link:
https://matthewryan.bandcamp.com/album/hustle-up-starlings

Current EVENTS

Matthew Ryan

Current EVENTS is an 8 song collection of ambient instrumentals by Matthew Ryan. It's only available DIGITALLY via www.matthewryanonline.com and Bandcamp. If you love it, please share news of its release. This was a labor of love.

Current EVENTS is a minimalist collection of instrumentals, no voice or lyric. These are chords and notes and sound with a purposeful depth of field and primal melodies, and mood. Essentially, they are tone poems. Some are quietly noisy, others are beautiful and brief. All are ambient, intimate and environmental feeling (by environmental I mean that they should participate in your surroundings, their intent is not to dominate your thoughts or surroundings). Each one took hours to perfect, even the shorter pieces. Tone and feel were paramount, I was looking for a very specific air. Each "song" flows from one to the next, not unlike a straightaway, or particularly cinematic line of trees. Continuity was my aim. It's about 22 minutes long.

HOW TO LISTEN:

Autumn is my favorite time of year, so vivid and constantly changing in air and look. I love the stark winters that follow up here where I'm living in Western Pennsylvania. Hills and rivers and trains, steel bridges and old architecture. And even still, the constant incoming of technology and information and the election. The troubles around the world and the country, the stresses and dissonance, and the seeming suddenness we've come to know so well. I wanted to make a companion to all that cinema. But I wanted it to operate without hype or force. Current EVENTS is offered to be experienced at a quieter to mid-level volume, it welcomes the ambient noise of wherever you live or what you're doing without invading your thoughts. Its intent is almost a soundtracking to you being leading women and men. Like Tom Waits said "All broken down by the side of the road, I never felt more alive and alone." That's what I tried to do here, to connect with those moments that sprawl. It's driving music, driving to work or stores or nowhere. Music for leaving and music for arriving. It's late night music, or rush hour music. Music for falling in love and being alone. Music for interiors. Music to make your friends worry about you... Hahahaha...

WHY I DID THIS:

I've loved the ambient work of Brian Eno, and the instrumental work of Ryuichi Sakamoto for years. The Cinema Paradiso pieces by Ennio Morricone have been constant companions for me since forever now. I've often thought instrumental music was the most generous music because it imposed no dialogue. It's pure, and allows each of us to immerse ourselves in our own stories and plots and beauties and aches. I've often found that some of my best lyric writing comes after a period of listening to a lot of instrumental music. Almost as if the absence of language reconnects me to my own interior. That's what I hope this collection offers to you. I don't pretend to be as proficient at this type of music as the artists I mentioned above, or even as my friends in Hammock and Our Ceasing Voice. I am a tourist when it comes to this. I don't consider myself a composer or even a particularly gifted arranger. But I am a pretty good at offering weather via sound and simplicity, and I love the process. Hopefully these pieces become ladders and ropes and hallways to your own thoughts. Ultimately, that's the goal. Again, at its root, I hope this collection offers you yourself. That's why there's no voice or language on Current EVENTS. I wanted you to hear your own voice here. It's my guess that that's what a song should always be doing, because in ourselves we find each other.

AND AS ALWAYS:

As always, when you purchase music, it helps artists to continue offering the work we do. It is always with a giant Thank You that I welcome your participation and advocacy. Music as a listener, and a creator, is an act of love. It really is. I always try to offer you the very best of what I'm capable of. I'm currently working on a new album that was produced by Brian Fallon (of The Gaslight Anthem). It's more in the vein of what you'd expect from me. Actually, I believe it speaks to much of the best of what I do in song and sound. But that's for a moment just a little further down the road. Expect that album in 2017. But right now, I hope you enjoy Current EVENTS. By purchasing this collection you make my continuing forward all the more navigable. So again, thank YOU.

PRICING:

To encourage you to listen to the collection as an entire piece I've priced individual songs at $2. The entire collection is priced at the very fair price of $7. I hope you'll consider buying the whole collection. Above all though, I hope that this music makes for a good companion.

LICENSING:

If you happen to be a film or television person and you're interested in licensing one of these pieces for something you're working on, please write me at matthewryaninfo@gmail.com

Boxers

Matthew Ryan

We're proud to announce that BOXERS is now live and available for immediate PURCHASE & DOWNLOAD!

Upon downloading the album we suggest 320 sized MP3s because they sound pretty good without occupying too much space on your mobile devices. But do what you feel comfortable with... And remember: PLAY it LOUDLY!

In addition to the (11) tracks on the album, there are 2 BONUS TRACKS included in the digital album purchase. One of those tracks was recorded during the BOXERS sessions, and the other is a punkier rawer home-recorded demo version of "Then She Threw Me Like a Hand Grenade."

We've added an option for you to pay more than $11 in response to how many of you have asked how you can help. Making records is still expensive, especially when you do it the way we decided to: self funded, in a proper studio with a great gang of humans collaborating. We're very proud of this record and plan on doing all we can for it over a long period of time. Your purchases are sincerely appreciated, and will help fund our efforts!! Please be patient as the campaign unfolds with physical product, and stay tuned for touring planned with a full band!

The Queen Of My Arms (Demo Version) plus This is the Hill

Matthew Ryan

The demo version of The Queen Of My Arms was recorded at home with just an acoustic guitar and harmonica. Also included is a rare epic outtake from the 2011 album I Recall Standing As Though Nothing Could Fall. The song is called This Is The Hill. Again, home-recorded, but more fleshed out than the Queen Of My Arms Demo. The two sound good next to each other!

In The Dusk Of Everything

Matthew Ryan

In The Dusk Of Everything is a collection of songs that is intended to be experienced as a piece, from beginning to end. It's not really a concept record, but an aural film where each song is a vignette circling a theme and mood. I wanted to make a modern folk record, but I ended up with a folky mood record that owes as much to the American Folk Tradition and punk's honest, vulnerable balladry; as it does to the minimalism of Brian Eno and Arvo Part. It's the earthiest collection of songs and music that I've offered in quite some time.

The majority of this music was recorded directly to 2 inch tape via one performance in the time it took to sing and play. This album was made over months. I started writing it in the early winter of 2011 after moving to a cool little river town just outside of Pittsburgh, PA. I'd lived in my adopted home of Nashville, TN for years, but it was time for a change. It feels good to be back in the state where I was born. In The Dusk Of Everything was recorded and mixed between April and July of 2012. I made this record with the help of the great talents and production wisdom of David Ricketts, the producer of my first album, May Day. The words are warm and loud, and thanks to the mastering of the talented Hans Dekline, the album sonically has a quiet depth and cinema.

This album was financed entirely by money I earned via previous albums and creativity. I believe the risk I take to be creative with my life and my work is clearly my own. But it does make it all the more important that if you love it (and assuming then that it has value to you) that you buy it. I only offer you music that I absolutely believe in. And by purchasing it you contribute directly to my ability to make more music for you, us. And I appreciate that relationship more than you may know.

I Recall Standing As Though Nothing Could Fall

Matthew Ryan

"And my thought now is, could the world ever be as kind as I thought it was then?" - Here Comes The Snow

"There's nothing precious about the songs here, but rather Matthew Ryan's incisive view of how and why we do what we do. Whether it's the provocatively imploring anthem "Hey Kid," or the grinding, barely suppressed rage of "All Hail The Kings Of Trash," or the late-night Tom Waits meets Sinatra longing of "Song For A Friend," this is a record that covers a lot of ground as it keeps its focus on the individual. Images of dresses on the floor, planes floating through snow, drunken proclamations and silenced lovers all glide by while not only blurring the lines between heroes and villains, but also blurring the borders between genres. "I Want Peace" thumps and prowls with the urban rumble of hip-hop, "Harmonium Song" sounds a hundred years old with its sorrowful Irish melody and "All of That Means Nothing Now" careens with that broken-hearted seethe that harks back to the air that punctuated much of Ryan's earlier work on May Day. No stone is left unturned on I Recall Standing As Though Nothing Could Fall, and together it all forms a perfect mosaic of Ryan's view of the modern struggle where despair and optimism coexist and perseverance alone resembles victory." C.S. June 2011

Dear Lover

Matthew Ryan

Dear Lover was written, recorded, produced and mixed at Ryan's home. The majority of what you here was played by Matthew Ryan with friends that came out to the house to help fill things out (see the complete credits below).

Dear Lover also includes the track, Spark, which is a collaboration with DJ Preach.